Traditionally, research in the area of fertility regulation has focused on the attitudes and behavior of individual men and women. However, when access to the means of regulating fertility is controlled by health professionals, the actions of these professionals may be as important in determining if, when, and how these means are used as is the behavior or motivation of potential clients. Legal abortion exemplifies this problem. Data from many sections of the United States, as well as expert opinion, converge in suggesting that the policies and practices of hospitals and physicians are influencing the availability of abortion to significant numbers of women. Little is known, however, concerning the precise nature of these policies or how they operate. The objective of this research is to define, for the state of Maryland, the professional and organizational constraints on access to abortion. This research has three basic components: (1) A survey of abortion policies and practices of the 48 non-Catholic short-term general hospitals in Maryland; (2) A survey of abortion and abortion referral practices of the 1400 general practitioners and obstetrician-gynecologists practicing in Maryland; (3) A survey of public and private agency abortion referral patterns. These data will be used in the following ways: (1) To describe abortion facilities in Maryland and, particularly, to define professional channels and professional constraints influencing access to these facilities; (2) Based on data from all three surveys, to define information and referral networks among abortion facilities, using sociometric techniques; (3) To describe the distribution of policies and services among hospitals and agencies by location and organizational characteristics, and among physicians by location and personal background; (4) To develop questions and hypotheses to explain variation in policies, practices, and referral patterns, as the basis for subsequent research.